Typewriting machine



Nov. 15, 1932. J. A. B. SMITH TYPEWRITING MACHINE Filed Nov. 18, 1950 Patented Nov. 15, 1932 UNITED STATES PATENT} OFFICE JESSE A. B. SMITH, OI STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT, ASSIGNOB '10 UNDERWOOD ELLIOTT FISHER COMPANY, OF NEW YORK, N. Y., A CORPORATION 01' DELAWARE mnwmrmo mcnnm Application fled November-18,1980. Serial No. 498,404.

' This invention relates to work-handling devices in front-strike typewriting machines having revoluble platens, and more particularly to improved means for making erasures 3 for corrections upon work-sheets being manimay be individually corrected and accurately folded.

The invention includes an erasing fixture that affords a novel mode of operation whereby a pack of carbon-interleaved work-sheets retyped at the same letter-space position on the sheets, and without first removing the pack fromthe control of the paper-holding platen-rollers, and without disfiguring the sheets from offsetting of carbons.

. Other features include a liftable frame.

made preferably from a single piece of sheet- -metal, and having an erasing table or shelf extending the whole length of the platen, and side arms at the ends of the erasing table whereby the frame may be pivotally mounted upon the ends of the usual paper-table at the rear of the platen. An ear is provided on each side arm to rest upon the carriage-end, to support the erasing table horizontally out of use high above the platen; a stop-member being placed at each side arm to engage the carriage and locate the frame and table in poised idle position. A spring may swing across the axis of the frame, to hold the table up or down. A graduated scale along the front edge of the erasing table centers work-sheets upon the platen, and indicates the corresponding letter-space .position on the platen-scale where an erasure has been made.

Still other features include a narrow paperguide upon the paper-finger-rod to slide therealong and direct any width of worksheet over said rod and under the erasing table; and there is provision for a new mode of o erati'on whereby the leading ends of the manifolded sheets may be advanced forwardly over the erasing table for erasures on the upper half of the sheets, or may be backed out to the rear of the. platen to make erasures on the lower half of the sheets by the use of the same erasing plate. a

The swingable frame permits quick insertions of the table between the work-plies regardless of the direction in which they are .fed around the platen.

carriage, illustratin the assembled relation of the improved eras ng table with the platen and the paper-table.

Figure 2 is perspective of the deflectorplate with portions broken away to disclose the manner of mounting the plate upon the paper-finger-rod. v

Figure 3 is a vertical cross-section throu h the carriage and platen, and illustrates t e manner of making a correction upon the lower section of'a work-sheet, operating the sheet from the rear of the platen.

Figure 4 is similar to Figure 3, but shows the forward end of a work-sheet being corrected upon the paper-table.

'10 is the commercial Underwood carriage that includes a pair of carriage-ends 11 joined together by a paper-table 12 to form an open ront frame for the reception of a cylindrical platen 13 secured to a platenshaft 14 rotatively mounted in each carriageend and provided with a finger-knob 15 at each end thereof to rotate the laten forwardly or rearwardly at will against the resistance of a. detent-roller 16 riding over the teeth of a line-space wheel'17.

Rollers 18 are tensioned against the under ferentwidths of worksheets. The construction up to this point is descriptive of the Underwood carriage and platen.

The upper edge of the paper-table 12 is I 1 they are adjustable along the rod 24 for difrolled to form a tube-like terminal section 25, and into each end of this tube a short rod or stud 26 may be forced or otherwise secured therein to project from the tube to the position of the carriage-ends 11, and each free end of the rods may be reduced in diameter to form pivots 27 which become stationary centers for a frame 28 to swing upon, which extends forwardly therefrom to overhang the platen 13.

The frame 28 is preferably blanked from sheet-metal, and the free ends bent inwardly at right angles to form arms 29 having bentover feet 30 to normally rest upon the top face 31 of the carriage-ends 11. The central section of the blank between the two arms ends 11, provides an erasing surface sus pended over the entire length of the platen and parallel thereto. One or both arms 29 may have a spring-stud 33 projecting from the side thereof to which may be attached I tensile springs 34 secured to the carriage.

At Figure 4 the frame 28 is shown at a depressed operative erasing position infull lines, and at a raised inoperative position in broken lines, and it will be seen that the spring 34 at one position holds the frame tensioned with its feet 30 on the carriage-ends 11, and at the other position the same spring swings across the axis 27 'of the frame to hold the frame at a raised or inoperative position A, with a stop-member 35 striking a part of the carriage-ends 11, This frame 28 then is swingable between two positions, each position determined by a stop, and each stop position maintained indefinitely by the tension of a single spring.

When the manifold pack of work-sheets are fed forwardly and leave the paper-fin-' gers 22, the leading edges are liable to wrap themselves about the platen or become en tangled with the paper-tinger-rod 24, and because of the unusual height of the table 32 above the platen, an unusual center deflector is provided between the two paper-fingers that may be adjustable relatively thereto for varying widths of sheets.

To this end, a deflector-plate 41 may be ad rier 38 to be turned upon the rod 24 by camming the wire 37 out of the groove 36. The carrier '38 has riveted thereto two fingers 40 formed from the plate 41, and further formed with a table-section 42 and a defiector-sec- 'tion 43.

with a scale 44 having graduations at letterspace or other intervals, secured to a front bar 45 of the frame and numbered so as to guide the'ope'rator in inserting sheets of various widths into the machine or to center various sheets relatively to the platen, to determine the location of the paper-fingers 22, which usually carry the side gages in the Underwood machine, and to indicate a letter-space position where an erasure has been made, and in which a correction must be typed by a transferred reading to the platenscale.

When an error has been manifolded upon the lower half of the work-sheets, the platen is rotated backwardly to the Figure 3 position, whereupon all-the sheets and all the carbons have been fed upwardly over the paper-table tube 25, and exposing the manifolding copy that was next to the platen. This exposed copy is brought forward to rest upon the erasing table, thus affording the, operator an opportunity to erase the error. The next erasure is made upon a sheet that lies between two carbon-sheets, and the problem arises to make this erasure without offsetting the carbon upon an adjoining work sheet. To avoid this difficulty, the erasing table is swung up to the A position of Figure 4, leaving all the sheets against the papertable 12. The erased work-sheet and its carbon are now brought forward over the table 42, the erasing table again lowered to erasing position, and the exposed second work-sheet brought forward to rest directly upon the table and the erasure made without interference from the carbon-sheets at either side of said work-sheet. Figure 3 shows this last condition where the first work-sheet and a carbon are under the erasing table 32 and rest upon the table 42 of the deflector, the second work-sheet is over the erasing tableand the operator is in the act of making an erasure, and the uncorrected work-sheets are lying upon the paper-table 12 to be corrected by similar operations of the erasing table and without having any offsetting or crocking troubles from the carbon-inlays.

It will be understood, of course, that it is. impossible sometimes to rotate the platen forwardly to make a correction without withdrawing the lower ends of the manifold pack from the control of the feed-rollers18, and hence it would be practically impossible to readjust the corrected sheet around the platen to type in the corrections, but, by this novel mode of operation made possible by the forward and downward swinging feature of the erasing frame, an erasure can be made close to the. bottom of the sheets and then corrected; an operation heretofore accomplished by erasing and retyping each sheet separatel When 1c error is in the upper half of the work-sheets the platen is rotated to align the position of the error upon the erasing table 32, and the table raised to let all the manifolds drop upon the table 42, the. outer or top work-sheet then brought forward and the table 32 restored to the position of Figure 4, when the first work-sheet is erased upon the table. For the correction of the second work-sheet, the corrected sheet and its underlying carbon are bent forwardly over the paper-fingers 22, and the second sheet over the erasing table 32 for a correction, and the remaining uncorrected work-sheets and carbons between the table 32 and the deflectortable 42. This operation of erasing errors upon the upper half of the second or middle work-sheetis graphically shown at Figure 4.

It will be particularly noted that the erasing table 32 is designed for an erasing operation upon a work-sheet brought forwardly over the table from the rear of the platen or fed rearwardly across said table from the front of the platen; that this manipulation of a work-sheet in two directions provides that errors may be corrected anywhere upon the sheet without losing the paper-holding control of the platen and feed-rollers 18, hence characters may be substituted for errors and manifolded at the exact letter-space and line-space positions where originally typed, by the mere rotation of the platen and without presenting the usual broken, uneven and disfiguring correction common to singlycorrectcd work-sheets; that the erasing table is swingable from the paper-table to and from the platen; that the erasing table when lifted to the A posit-ion does not interfere with the usual typing and line-spacing of a long work-sheet not being manifolded or interfere 'with the feeding of the sheet over the tube 25 of the paper-table; and that the deflector 41 as a unit may be thrown backward away from the platen when desired.

Variations may be resorted to within the scope of the invention, and portions of the improvements may be used without others.

Having thus described my invention, I claim:

1. In a typewriting machine, the combi-i 2. In a typewriting machine, the combination of a carriage having a cylindrical platen and a paper-table at the rear of the platen to guide work-sheets to the platen, an erasing table supported by the paper-table to overhang the platen and support a worksheet while being erased for a correction, and an under-table spaced above the platen and spaced below the erasing table for normally supporting the work-sheets, said erasing table having stops at each end thereof to rest upon the carriage and support said table against the pressure of making an erasure.

3. In a typewriting machine, the combination of a rotatable paper-feeding platen, a platen-frame, a paper-table at the rear of the platen, an erasing table pivotally supported by the paper-table and swingable between an inoperative position over the paper-table and an erasing position above the platen, and stop means on the erasing table operable to engage the platen-frame and arrest the table at either position of its swing.

4. In a typewriting machine, the combination of a rotatable paper-feeding platen, a platen-frame, a paper-table at the rear of the platen, an erasing table pivotally supported by the paper-table and swingable between an inoperative position over the paper-table and an erasing position above the platen, stop means on the erasing table operable to engage the platen-frame and arrest the table at either position of its swing, and a spring connected to the table and operable by the swing of the table to hold the table at each of said positions under a tension.

5. In a typewriting machine, the combination of a cylindrical platen, a platen-frame, a paper-table, an erasing table mounted upon the paper-table to hang over the platen, he paper being fed into the machine over t e paper-table and fed around the platen by the rotation of the platen, and a paper-deflector on the frame extending upwardly and rearwardly from the platen and having an undertablet portion spaced below the erasing tableand above the platen.

6. In a typewriting machine, the combination of a carriage having a cylindrical platen and a paper-table at the rear of the platen to guide work-sheets thereto, and a swingable erasing table suspended above the platen, the paper-table having a pivot-stud at each side thereof and the erasing table having side arms that take bearings upon the pivots, whereby said table may be swung to and from the platen, and an under-tablet for supporting the work-sheets above the platen, said undertablet being spaced above the platen and also spaced below the overlying erasing table.

7. In a typewriting machine, the combination of a carriage having a cylindrical platen, an under-tablet above the platen to support work-sheets, a hinged erasing table suspended above the under-tablet, and spaced therefrom,

the hinge being parallel with the platen, whereby said table may be swung upwardly and rearwardly from the platen, and a stop engageable with the carriage when the erasing table is swung over the platen, to support the table above the under-tablet.

8. In a typewriting machine, the combina-- tion of a carriage having a cylindrical platen and a paper-table at the rear of the platen to guide work-sheets thereto, a swingable erasing table suspended above the platen, the paper-table having a pivot-stud at each side thereof and the erasing table having side arms that take bearings upon the pivots, whereby said table may be swung to and from the platen, and a pair of stops on each side arm engageable with different parts of the carriage to arrest the erasing table when swung to or from the platen.

9. In a typewriting machine, the combination of a carriage having a cylindrical platen and a paper-table at the rear'of the platen to guide work-sheets thereto, a swingable erasing table suspended above the platen, the paper-table having a pivot-stud at each side thereof and the erasing table having side arms that take bearings upon the pivots, whereby said table may be swung to and from the platen, a pair of stops on each side arm engageable with diflerent parts of the carriage to arrest the erasing table when swung to or from the platen, and a spring swingab e with a side arm to pass over the axis of a pivot and hold either stop ofthe erasing table stationary with the carriage and under tension.

10. In a typewritin machine, the combina-' tion of a cylindrical p aten, a platenframe, a

paper-table, an erasing table mounted upon the paper-table to hang over the platen, the

paper being fed into the machine 'over the paper-table and fed around the platen by the rotation of the platen, and a paper-deflector on the frame extending upwardly and rearwardly from the platen and having an undertablet portion spaced below the erasing table and above the platen, and paperidin fingers alongside of sand under-tab at an adjustable along the platen towards and away from said under-tablet.

JESSE A. B. SMITH. 

